Altairnano isn’t the only name in the Lithium Titanate game, now Toshiba has come to the table with a lithium titanate-based battery that offers improved specifications over the current Altairnano battery technology – specifically their 100W/kg claim, which is key for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt.
Toshiba announced a new revision of their battery this week, boosting the storage density to 100W/kg, 50% over their previous version, and beating the current Altairnano design of 74W/kg. Energy density is a very important characteristic to vehicles because of weight concerns (see this primer on battery characteristics). The Volt’s T-shaped battery is very large and weighs 400lbs (181kg) for 16kWh of energy. As the energy density increases, the less weight you have to carry for a battery pack.
Lithium titanate batteries work by replacing the cathode (negative terminal) in the battery with a different material. When you hear about different battery types, this is usually what they mean – the replacement of the cathode material. This is the basis for what is moving lithium ion based batteries ahead in terms of performance characteristics.
These batteries offer lots of benefits over other types of lithium ion batteries – no thermal runaway and higher cycle counts are the two principle benefits. Toshiba demonstrated the battery’s resilience by driving a nail through one of their SCiB batteries with no explosion or fire. They also claim that the battery will lose less than 10% of its capacity over a 3,000 cycle life, or roughly as long many cycles as would be required for a plug-in hybrid with a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty.
Toshiba is touting 90 second recharge times for these new batteries, which is great for smaller applications like bicycles and laptops, but when it comes to larger applications like electric cars, once again the issue isn’t battery characteristics but how to get that much juice into a car, and finding a source that can provide megawatt-level power to recharge your car. Recharging 16kWh in 90 seconds would require an immense amount of power, not something you will be able to pull out of an electrical outlet in your house.
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